“People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are.”

“She had been in situations like this, where people said, Convince me, and in none of those had they actually wanted to be convinced. She could lay down a perfect argument and they just invented new...”

“All empires fall, eventually. But why? Its not for lack of power. In fact, it seems to be the opposite. Their power lulls them into comfort. They become undisciplined. Those who had to earn power a...”

“ 'You can't stop me. Your word voodoo, it doesn't work on me. Right? So how do you think you're going to-' Eliot produced a pistol. He didn't seem to pull it from anywhere. He just suddenly had it....”

“It was always this way: The more people talked, the more they obscured. You didn't need to argue for the truth. You could see it.”

“Well, I like to know where I'm going before I try to get there. It's a mistake to try to execute a plan before you've thought of one, in my experience.”

“Oneabout cigarettesI was pleased to see that anticigarette ad on the back issue of Hustler. I'm more offended by seeing ads for cigarettes in magazines than pictures of vaginas, because one kills a...”

“One—about cigarettes—I was pleased to see that anticigarette ad on the back issue of Hustler. I'm more offended by seeing ads for cigarettes in magazines than pictures of vaginas, because one kills...”